


Tones of Sepia

by My_Trex_has_fleas



Category: Captain America (Movies), MCU, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Flashbacks, M/M, Past and Present, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:56:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5983459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Trex_has_fleas/pseuds/My_Trex_has_fleas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is trying to reconnect with Bucky. He knows he's out there, and he knows he's watching him. But he doesn't know how much or even if Bucky remembers what they used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tones of Sepia

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a mix of canon and AU, and starts after The Age of Ultron and will hopefully continue into the greta beyond if Civil war doesn't kill me first.

It was so strange to Steve that he was a piece of public property, of public history. That for millions of people he was the embodiment of an entire nation. It’s a dubious honour that he never ever wanted or needed. It was simply a means to an end for him, a way to feel like he was doing his part. And for him, Steve Rogers and Captain America were and always would be two separate people. Tonight for instance. The fund raiser was a public event and people had queued outside to get a look at him and he was the picture of gracious decorum. But inside Steve Rogers rolled his eyes and wish that he could sit on his sofa at the facility, eat a carton of greasy Chinese food and then maybe jerk off to some of the porn he had downloaded on his laptop before he went to bed.

He dug in his pocket for the secreted packet of cigarettes, one of the dirty little habits no-one would ever suspect of Captain America. Steve Rogers, on the other hand, had been smoking since he was twelve. It had driven Bucky nuts, the cavalier way in which Steve played chicken with his health. It was as if he was determined to give his body the big fuck you at every opportunity and there were many times when Steve came home to find his illicit stash broken in half and floating in the john. That had been Bucky’s way. Steve would then simply go out and buy more.

He lit it with a zippo made of tarnished brass, so scratched and dented one can hardly see the initials JBB engraved into the front anymore. Bucky had normally carried it everywhere with him, but he’d forgotten it on that fateful day he was captured and Steve had found it when he was going through his duffle bag back when they had regrouped. When they had found Bucky once again, Steve had offered it back to him and Bucky had snorted and told him to keep it. After all, Steve got more use out of it than he did. They had been fucking again by that point and Bucky had joked that it was Steve’s payoff to let Bucky near his ass, to let him touch him in the ways that he did. It had annoyed the hell out of him though to realise that Steve could smoke as much as he wanted now that he was Captain America, his body shrugging off the harmful effects like it was nothing. Bucky had never bought into the idea that they were good for asthma, a man way ahead of his time in more ways than one.

A sound reached is ears and Steve straightened up, killing the butt under his heel and waiting for the person in question to out herself. It didn’t take long and she melted out of the shadows.

‘Here you are.’ she said and smiled in that cat-like way of hers. ‘They’re looking for you.’

‘Shit, Nat.’ he said and took the pack out again. ‘It’s just you.’ He lit a new cigarette. ‘They can wait a little longer.’ Natasha leaned back against the wall and watched him, her eyes as far from serious as they got.

‘Those things will kill you.’ she deadpanned.

‘Actually, I can categorically state that they won’t.’ Steve replied, inhaling deeply and blowing the smoke into the night air. ‘How the hell did you find me anyway?’

‘I always go up when I look for you.’ She moved and Steve took a moment to appreciate her graceful body, wrapped in a slinky tube of black satin. While she held no attraction for him, he could appreciate her magnificence with an artist’s eye.

‘You have a thing for roofs.’ He smiled at her.

‘Yes, I do.’ he replied.

_The first time had been a hot July night, sticky and clogged with pollution, but it had been perfect. Steve remembered the feel of Bucky’s hands on his bare skin, the heat in his kisses, the pain and pleasure of that first time mixing until Steve hadn’t known whether he was still living or on his way to heaven. And afterwards they had gone out onto the roof so Steve could have that cigarette he craved so badly._

‘You’re thinking about him.’ Nat’s voice cut through the memory and it curled and drifted away like smoke.

‘I always think about him.’ Steve replied. He looked at her. They had grown close since the thing with Ultron, recognising in each other a kindred spirit. They both knew loss, had both felt what it was like to live without the person that completed them. And Steve had seen just what that had cost her, how even as Natasha doted on Clint’s family she mourned what she had let slip through her fingers. He looked into the sky and blew out a perfect smoke ring, one of the many dubious talents Steve Rogers possessed, but which Captain America would have no part in. ‘I think about where he is, what he’s doing. Whether he remembers me, even if it’s just a little bit.’

‘He doesn’t.’ Natasha said. ‘The programming makes sure of that.’ Steve looked at her again.

‘He’s been away from them for a while now.’ he said. ‘And we have no idea just what will happen when all that shit works its way out of his system. You made it out. I think he can as well.’ Natasha shrugged and then deftly stole the cigarette from between his fingers before taking the last drag and then flipping it over the railing of the terrace they were standing on.

‘You’re a dreamer, Steve.’ she said. ‘Now come inside and give your rousing speech about how we can tackle childhood obesity through a sensible regime of diet and exercise.’ She held out her arm and Steve snorted a laugh and then took it. They walked back to the roof exit and he held the door for her as she swept in past him.

He could not resist looking over his shoulder one last time, however, at the skyline that was silhouetted against the inky blue of the New York night.

Bucky was out there somewhere. Steve could feel it.

*************

In the office block across the road, the man formerly known as James Buchanan Barnes watched through the scope of his rifle as the two people went inside.

He had made this his new mission, now that missions were no longer forthcoming. He had adapted quickly to his new life here in New York, dredging up information from his long buried memories. He spent his days underground, hiding out in sewers and long abandoned train lines, criss-crossing underneath the city. He had used his very specialised skills set to steal clothes and food and broke into public facilities to wash and sleep. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before and he took to it like a duck to water.

He had been back to their old neighbourhood, the run-down apartment blocks and houses now restored and the place gentrified almost beyond recognition. Their building was gone, and the flicker of sadness that bought had surprised him. He’d long since resigned himself to a life without any shred of normality attached to it, even if he had known what that normality had once been. He was recalling more every day, this much was true, but it was fragmented and came is blinding flashes when he did things like stare too long at a certain image or smell something that brought a wave of feeling that threatened to overwhelm him.

He had learned to love and hate the colour blue in equal measures. He dreamed of it constantly, blue as bright as a clear summer sky. It made his stomach twist and set off a seep ache inside him, like a bad tooth that needed to be pulled before it poisoned the rest of his system. And all this to track and stalk a man he barely remembered but couldn’t shake. A man who haunted his dreams and made him wake up hard and shaking, a name on his lips that he hadn’t used in what felt like forever.

The Winter Soldier lowered his rifle and took a deep breath. He was not ready to face this, not ready to step out into the light and look into the blue that threatened to drive what was left of his broken psyche over the brink and into the abyss that beckoned. He broke down the rifle and packed it away, the movements of his hands quick and sure. Then he shouldered his pack and left the darkened office to get out the way he came.

************

_Two days later_

 

_Steve._

The word seeped into his subconscious and woke him up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his name spoken like that, whispered softly in the dark. It was almost light, that odd hour between darkness and sunrise when Steve could just make out the shapes in his room.

He focused and then he saw it, the outline of a figure perched on the window sill with the lightening sky behind him. Steve sat up and the bed creaked. The figure stiffened, tension in every line. Steve sat still and looked at the man in the window, recognising so much and yet at the same time seeing so many new things that hadn’t been there before.

‘I bought the bed at an antique shop.’ He said, and his voice was unnaturally loud in the room. ‘Some tiny place out of I35. The woman in there recognised me and she gave me a really good deal in exchange for an autograph and a picture.’ He half expected the figure to leave, to disappear into the darkness, but it didn’t move and that gave him the tiniest flicker of hope. He took a breath and continued speaking, his tone low and soothing as if talking to a frightened animal. Which, in a way, he was.

‘Remember when we were just outside Lyon. We found that bombed out farmhouse and the only room left intact was the one with that huge brass bed. I remember you looking at me like we’d won the state fair grand prize and Dugan turned around and said ‘Look’s like we’re sleeping in the barn boys, otherwise there’s going to be enough damn noise to wake the dead.’ Which was such a load of shit because we’ve never been loud but I think they just knew how bad we needed time with each other.’ The figure tilted his head ever so slightly and Steve pressed on.

‘So I’m riding down this street and I stop at the lights and there it is, just sitting in the window of this shop and it looked just like that damn bed. It made me think of how dark your eyes get, the way you breathe so quickly, the way your skin tastes.’ He heard the figure’s breathing hitch just a little. The next words came from deep inside him, words he had not spoken to anyone else. ‘I miss you Buck. I miss us.’

The figure shifted in the sill, and Steve caught a glint of light off metal as Bucky raised his hand and held on to the frame. His head lifted and Steve was sure that even in the dark, the connection was there. He decided to go for broke.

‘I love you James Buchanan Barnes.’ he said, the sincerity in his voice ringing like a bell. ‘I have always loved you and I will go to my grave still loving you, whenever the hell that may be.’ That got a hitch of breath and then a barely audible word that drifted through to quite room and hit Steve like a blow in the stomach.

‘ _Ptichka_.’

‘Bucky...’ Steve started but at that precise moment the alarm sounded, strident and making his ears ring. He grimaced and turned as quickly as he could to turn on the bedside light, but by the time he turned back and the door to his bedroom flew open and what seemed like twenty agents poured in, the man in the window was gone.

‘Shit!’ Steve slumped back against the headboard and stifled the frustration and anger that bubbled up inside him. He watched the agents working on order, sweeping his bedroom, bathroom and the sitting area beyond as they had been instructed to do. The last person through the door was Natasha, dressed in baggy sweats and a t-shirt, her thick red hair tied up in a scruffy ponytail. It always amused Steve that the most desirable femme fatale of the espionage world dressed like a teenage boy in her down time. There was nothing unprofessional about her demeanour however, as she came in to stand guard over him, her weapon held at the ready.

They watched the agents complete their security check and then Natasha dismissed them with a curt nod of her head. Only once they had filed out did she relax and look at Steve before going to the door and closing it. He watched her come over and sit on the edge of the bed.

‘He was here.’ It wasn’t a question. Steve didn’t answer her. ‘He got through the security perimeter without tripping a single alarm. The only reason we know he was in here was because of the heat signature recognition software Tony put in.’ Her voice was filled with grudging admiration. ‘He’s good.’

‘He’ll be gone by now.’ Steve said. ‘They won’t find anything he doesn’t want them to.’

‘But he’ll be back.’ Natasha said. Her blue eyes were speculative when she looked at Steve. ‘He can’t seem to stay away.’ Steve stared back at her, meeting her eyes and keeping his face neutral. Eventually she sighed and got up. Steve watched her walk to the door and as she opened it, he spoke.

‘Nat.’ he said and she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. ‘What does _ptichka_ mean?’ He was surprised to see a ghost of a smile on her face.

‘It means ‘little bird’.’ she said and then left the room, closing the door behind her. Steve waited a few minutes, and then got out of bed and walked over to the still open window. He looked out into the dim light and felt his heart ache in a way it had not done for a very long time.

 _Little bird_.

‘Where are you, Buck?’ he whispered, but the empty night gave no reply.


End file.
